This Week’s Featured Article

This is an article that will probably be read by ONLY those who are humble enough and committed enough to really want the truth. That means it will only be read by a few. Can you say: Competitive Advantage? Booz & Co’s Strategy + Business magazine offers some significant insights into this question. My experience? [...]

Additional Articles

NPR radio is producing something called “StoryCorps” in which they feature stories of every day people. This week they chose the story of a funeral director and his story that casts all of us in a pretty good light. Odd for this to be featured on the usually contentious NPR but it’s uplifting and sometimes [...]

The ownership role of any entity is a cycle: Learning, leading, mentoring and, finally, leaving. This essay offers interesting insights on when one should leave gracefully. Perhaps such criticism is warranted. But Peter Drucker would say that Pincus, so far, has at least done the right thing in stepping aside. “As a new venture develops and grows, [...]

You have heard me say (and you will hear it often) that funeral service is underled and overmanaged. This is a result of confusion on the part of our profession between the task of directing activities and the duty to develop your people. Funeral home owners overwhelming hire employees that will do what they are [...]

The practice of overcharging our best customers has begun to haunt us…no, hurt us! While not the only reason for the growth of cremation, many now believe that forcing our burial customers to bear the burden and subsidize our cremation customers has definitely accelerated the trend. This entertaining article makes the point well. Have you [...]

Analytics feel so good because you can measure them. Peter Drucker is purported to have said, “If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it.” EXCEPT, he never said it. The point continues to be that DeathCare is overmanaged and underled. The recent trend towards analytics is, in fact, a positive one. It’s danger (and [...]

What happens when plans go terribly awry as they recently did with the venerable JC Penney “strategy.” We can learn some valuable lessons here. Especially the one about the “Retail Drug” the non-strategy “Low Price Strategy. JCP doesn’t need someone who can “execute” successfully, get back to basics, or any such thing. Just as [...]

Here 12 leadership concepts that stand the test of time. Surveys show that over 70 percent of consumers in America and Europe distrust businesses as a whole. But for the brands that they do trust, consumer loyalty is fierce. I’ve personally found that one of the easiest ways to instill trust is to mirror [...]

Like you, I have sat through too many powerpoint presentations about market segmentation. Somehow it didn’t ring true to me. Or, at least, if it is true, I find it almost insurmountable logic to believe that you can be quite as granular as you think you can. There was a time when the air force [...]

Getting small business owners to “think” about their business is a real challenge for several reasons. First, they are so busy “doing” it’s hard to stop and reflect. Second, they are rarely trained to think in a comprehensively analytical way and, third, most of the time it bores them. This is a great and simple [...]

I hope you are as tired and bored as I am of chasing after rainbows and false starts. DeathCare is undergoing a radical transformation. And for those of you struggling with making that move here is excellent advice: As small business owners we spend too much time: Learning to accept the fact that we need [...]

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